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He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?
lean forward and our lips land clumsily on each other. They are like the fat bodies of bees, soft and round and giddy with pollen. I can taste his mouth—hot and sweet with honey from dessert. My stomach trembles, and a warm drop of pleasure spreads beneath my skin. More.
Dear gods, I think, let him not hate me.
Our mouths opened under each other, and the warmth of his sweetened throat poured into mine. I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movements of his lips. It was a miracle.
will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
“I know. They never let you be famous and happy.” He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you a secret.” “Tell me.” I loved it when he was like this. “I’m going to be the first.” He took my palm and held it to his. “Swear it.”
“If you have to go, you know I will go with you.”
The words shook Deidameia from her trance. “No,” she said, voice rising again. “You cannot. Your mother said the words over us, and we are married. You are my husband.”
I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
He had always trusted too easily; he had had so little in his life to fear or suspect.
The room turned gray, then white. The bed felt cold without him, and too large. I heard no sounds, and the stillness frightened me. It is like a tomb. I rose and rubbed my limbs, slapped them awake, trying to ward off a rising hysteria. This is what it will be, every day, without him. I felt a wild-eyed tightness in my chest, like a scream. Every day, without him.
“He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.”
“That’s the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief.”
But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another.”
